


Official History

by DeltaJones



Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Capital Wasteland, Fallout 4 - Freeform, Gen, Old Olney, Prydwen, Sarah Lyons - Freeform, Terminal Archives, Vertibird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 08:28:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6277117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeltaJones/pseuds/DeltaJones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How did Maxson really get those facial scars? The archives of the Brotherhood of Steel say, in short, that Elder Sarah Lyons fell in battle around 2279. For an order of knights with a history of recording even the insignificant, it's odd that they would summarize the death of an Elder in three words. One of her only real friends is out for an answer right from the horse's mouth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Official History

From the Citadel, any Knight who took the time to look to the north could see, by naked eye alone, the vertibird transport fall out of the sky and explode. If any had been looking north at that moment, there would have been an immediate rescue mission scrambled and Knights by the tens marching on Old Olney. 

Not a one saw anything. They were too busy gawking at their latest visitor. Uncle Leo was a special kind of interesting to the Brotherhood of Steel. Years back, he’d been tagged in their files as a friendly, intelligent and altruistic Super Mutant intent to gift, if he were able, the Moon itself to each and every one of them. A little odd, but the Brotherhood welcomed his arrival both with open arms and trepidation. 

The ruins of Old Olney had once been home to many dozens of Deathclaws and their nests. Towards the end of the BoS/Enclave conflict in 2277, a certain young man fought his way through the Deathclaws on his way to the underground infrastructure in search of pre-war relics to fight the Brotherhood’s war. 

Two years later, he eradicated each and every Deathclaw in the north. 

Since then, settlers have slowly come and gone but trade is strong. Old Olney, the Republic of Dave and Canterbury Commons form a triangle of commerce through which the settlements flourish. 

Today, no one wanted anything to do with the crash to the south-west of the old industry town. 

The pilot was alive, but unconscious; dragged away by the sole responder to the accident. A young man, a teenager really, crawled from the wreckage, his uniform torn and his armor drooping in places where the joints had torn free. 

“Arthur,” the responder said. 

Paladin Arthur Maxson looked up to see a man in a leather duster standing over him, the flames from the burning craft lighting his face in the darkening day. He had a modified assault rifle over his back and a gauntlet made from the hand of a Deathclaw tied to his arm. 

“Wanderer,” Arthur said. “What happened?”

“I shot down your vertibird,” the Lone Wanderer said simply. 

The sheer gall of his statement threw Arthur off a peg. He almost recoiled. “You what?”

“I shot you down. Figured that’d get your attention.”

Wasting hardly a moment, Arthur pulled his sidearm, a backwards engineered plasma pistol, care of Enclave advances in the field. 

The Wanderer didn’t move. “I’ve been trying to get you to talk with me for weeks. Arthur, I think it’s long past time you and I had a conversation about Elder Lyons.”

“As a Paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel, Knight, I insist--”

Arthur Maxson grew a small knife in his hand and screamed at the sudden apparition. 

“Arthur, one more time. You and I need to talk. What happened,” he said slowly, “to Elder Lyons?”

Arthur answered through gritted teeth. “You know damn well what happened, Knight. The Elder was old and he died!”

“Not that Elder. I want to hear you say it; what happened to Sarah Lyons?”

Arthur was silent a long moment. The Wanderer fiddled with another, identical knife to the one embedded in the Paladin’s hand. Around the moment the Wanderer was growing bored with picking the dirt from his fingernails, Arthur spoke.

“Sarah-- Elder Lyons fell in battle. It was a battle we started, but one we could win with few losses. The Elder was one of them. It is as simple as that.”

The Wanderer tilted over and yanked his throwing knife from Arthur’s hand. Arthur let out a grunt, but otherwise kept his teeth together. 

“Nothing is simple. Who was fighting, the Enclave? I cleaned them up. Super Mutants? There aren’t any left but my allies in all of Maryland. Raiders? Don’t kid me. What happened, Arthur?”

“That is Paladin to you, Knight. What it is that you want?”

“I want an answer that makes sense, kid. I want to hear you tell someone the truth for the first time since the old man died.”

“Knight, we will settle this the way all disputes are settled in the wastes.”

Arthur shot the Wanderer with his augmented plasma pistol. The shot knocked the 22 year-old Knight over, fusing his duster into his skin. When the crackling died down, Arthur climbed to his feet to inspect his handiwork. 

Standing over the Wanderer’s corpse, Arthur wondered why no one had done this years earlier. This Knight, in name only, was the single worst security risk to the Brotherhood of Steel since the capture and near eradication of the Lyons Pride at Point Lookout National Park. Was it Owen Lyons’ sentimentality that allowed this walking disaster to roam with the Brotherhood’s power at his beck and call? 

It had to be. The old man had been failing for years leading up to his death; the schism was proof; hell, the entire campaign against the Enclave was proof of that. 

Given the moment to reflect on the failures of the Brotherhood under Owen Lyons, Arthur Maxson failed to notice when the Wanderer kicked the plasma pistol from his grasp. The Wanderer was up in the blink of an eye, his free hand squeezing Arthur’s throat and his other hand coming into a swing. 

The Wanderer brought his gauntlet up Maxson’s face, leaving three deep, bleeding gashes. “Arthur, you’ve told me all I need to know. Next time you decide a change in leadership is necessary, you bring your grievance to your betters. Best you remember that, or those pretty lines will be the least of your worries.”

The Wanderer was gone. How, only the wind knows. In an open field with only the lacking cover of a burning vertibird, he couldn’t have vanished without a trace. But between his hand and his face, Arthur Maxson had better things to worry about than one man. 

His return was marked by a fantastical story of a malfunctioning airship and an act of single combat between the teenaged Maxson and a Deathclaw. History would not remember the Knight from Vault 101, nor the assassination of the late Elder Sarah Lyons. History would remember cries of “ad victoriam” and the destruction of thousands of lives in the Commonwealth at the hands of Maxson’s Brotherhood of Steel. 

But with all things, one thing remains the same: war. War never changes.


End file.
